India Issues 400,000 OCI Cards, Says Diaspora Report

By RICHARD SPRINGER
indiawest.com	November 02, 2009 06:43:00 PM

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The Indian government has granted almost 400,000 Overseas Citizenship of India cards, 43 percent of them through Indian consulates in the U.S. and 13 percent in the U.K., according to a new report on the Indian diaspora by the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute.

The new report, “Emigration, Immigration, and Diaspora Relations in India,” written by New Delhi-based Daniel Naujoks, presents a comprehensive picture of the history of India’s emigration and immigration, including data on remittances, migration and refugee policies, IT trends and other topics.

In 1999, India introduced the Person of Indian Origin Card and in 2005 the OCI card. Both grant practical parity with Indian citizens but do not permit voting, standing for election, or government employment.

PIO cards are available to former Indian citizens and their non-Indian-born descendants (up to four generations) while the OCI card is limited to those whose parents or grandparents once had or were eligible for Indian citizenship as of Jan. 26, 1950. Also, OCI grants a lifelong visa and does not require reporting to the police for stays longer than 180 days.

The total Indian American population in the U.S. numbered about 2.5 million in 2007, including 1,678,765 born in India (see table 3). The Indian population in the United Kingdom was about 1.3 million that same year.

Indian H-1B visa holders in the U.S. “grew fivefold between 1989 and 1999 and peaked in 2001 with 160,000 issuances,” said the report. “In that year, 82 percent of all computer-related H-1B visas were given to Indians and 85 percent of all Indian H-1B beneficiaries were counted as computer related.

In 2007, India received one-third, or 158,000, of all H-1B visas (including new visas and renewals). The second largest number went to Canadian citizens, accounting for 26,000 visas.

“Between 1995 and 2005, half of the Europe-bound Indian immigrants headed to the United Kingdom. The other half opted for other EU countries, primarily Germany and Italy, which received 18 percent and 12 percent of the flows, respectively,” the report said.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, from 1986-2005, the “annual total influx of Indian immigrants more than tripled from 27,000 to 85,000, while the share in total immigration flows rose from 4.4 to 7.4 percent,” the study said.

“Indian citizens accounted for 5.7 percent of all persons obtaining lawful permanent resident status in 2008.”

About 74.1 percent of those in the U.S. born in India in 2008 held at least a bachelor’s degree, and 68.9 percent reported working in management, professional, and related occupations, according to U.S. Census Bureau data cited in the report.

In 2007, 9,200 Afghanistan refugees (92 percent of them Hindu or Sikh) were living in India, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. About 4,000 asylum seekers, mostly from Afghanistan and Burma, are applying for refugee certification.